XWave Introduces the Digital Generation to Biofeedback

Biofeedback is a process that has been used for decades, but XWave has turned it into a means of mind control for the digital generation.

XWave technology built an Apple app based on decades of other people?s research and experimentation. Folks have been trying to relax and control their physiological activities for centuries. Consciously reducing muscle tension is a simple goal most of us can achieve with a little practice. Meditation has been aimed at quieting your mind. However, more complicated bodily functions require more concentrated effort, such as reducing your heart rate, or lowering your blood pressure, as some Yogis can do.

In the 1960s, Antoine Remond, MD while researching electroencephalography [EEG] began experimenting with voluntary control of brain waves. In the early 1970?s, early biofeedback instruments began appearing and Hershel Toomim developed the first standardized and calibrated systems spanning the measures of electromyography [EMG], temperature, galvanic skin response [GSR] now known as electrodermal response, and EEG.

Toomim?s wife Marjorie, a psychologist, created the Biofeedback Institute of Los Angeles [BILA] where she treated pain, stress, and psychological disorders using the concept. Hershel Toomim programmed a Biocomp system related to his work with alpha brain wave training using an Apple II computer. Chuck Davis joined him and together they developed the world?s first wireless [infrared] biofeedback system based on that early Apple computer in 1984.

You also need a $99 head set with a single dry [no gel] sensor that rests on your temple and a "grounding" clip on your ear. The NeuroSky eSense Dry Sensor is the patented device that picks up electrical impulses from your brain and translates the analog signals into digital which your hand held device can read.

NeuroSky licenses their ThinkGear ASIC programmable chip which integrates into any BCI form factor, combined for a multi-sensor solution. They also offer an option for hard coding to protect the programmer?s intellectual property [IP]. Raw brain signals are amplified and processed by algorithms. Apps are being developed to address ADD, autism, post-traumatic-stress-disorder [PTSD], brain injury, Cerebral Palsy, and Parkinson?s Disease.

The Visualizer is supposed to help train your brain to maximize its attention span or concentration, and to teach you relaxation based on how you can change an on-screen color by lowering your brain?s activity level. In "Focus" you try to raise a ball by "thinking" it higher. In "Nirvana" you try to reach a meditative state of mind. Colors indicate your progress: red being the furthest from your goal, blue being the most meditative state.

The Visualizer?s Nirvana program resembles the old Mood Rings of the 1970?s. The stone in the ring would change colors as your mood or emotions changed. They weren?t scientifically accurate, instead they were simple indications of your body’s involuntary physical reaction to your emotional state. Thermotropic liquid crystals in the ring?s glass dome would move and change molecular structure in response to changes in the temperature of your skin. The wavelengths of light that are absorbed or reflected by the crystals cause an apparent change in the color. Increases in temperature cause the stone to reflect blue; lower temperatures absorb the blue light, making the stone reflect shades of red and green. When you are passionate, your skin flushes from capillaries that have moved closer to skin?s surface and released heat. With the rise in temperature, your ring would turn dark blue. Oddly, the saying "I?m in a Blue Mood" doesn?t coincide with mood ring indicators. Various interpretations of the colors exists but are all very similar.

Marvin Wernick created the first mood ring, but did not patent his idea. Joshua Reynolds, a marketing guru in the cigarette family, is generally credited with having the first successful implementation of the idea ? in the ?70?s jewelry fad, that is revived from time to time. Because som
e liquid crystals can be changed by an electrical charge, thermotropic liquid crystals gave rise to the LCD?s we are familiar with in today?s consumer electronics.